Reaper's Legacy(98)

He heard her scream as someone grabbed the phone. Adrenaline slammed through him, taking him from relaxed to ready for action in a heartbeat. Instead of acting on it, he forced himself to stay calm and listen with everything he had. They’d need every clue they could to find Sophie … and Em? What the f*ck? Jesus, Em should know better than to go out without giving Pic a heads-up. How had Em gotten mixed up in this?

“Ruger,” a man said. “This is Skid. From Seattle. We got a bit of a problem.”

“You’re dead,” Ruger replied, his voice flat, and he meant it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Picnic grab a bar stool and smash it against the wall. Horse was on his feet, pushing a trio of girls out the door as Painter grabbed a sawed-off shotgun from behind the bar.

Slide wandered in from the bathroom and glanced around, brows rising.

“Yeah, we’ll talk about my death later,” Skid said, sounding bored. “Listen up. Your boy in Portland—Toke—he went apeshit on two of our brothers a coupla hours ago. Just broke into the damned house and started shooting. There’s cops everywhere, a couple of bitches who saw it all go down, total clusterf*ck. Girls are talkin’ to the cops, too, just to make things perfect. Docs are working on one guy right now, no idea if he’ll make it. Toke dragged the other off.”

“You’re full of shit,” Ruger said. Toke might be a wild card but he wouldn’t ignore a vote by the full club.

“Process later,” Skid snapped. “It’s time for you to get your boy under control and our man back to us. Safe. Until then, we’ll take good care of—what’s her name again? Sophie? We’ll take good care of sweet little Sophie for you. She’ll be just fine once we clear this up. Our boy goes down? Her prospects don’t look so good. Got a real nice ass. Might tap it before I shoot her. Got me?”

He hung up.

“Fuck,” Ruger muttered, kicking over the coffee table as he stood up. Pic yelled as Horse and Bam Bam held him back. Ruger ignored the drama, striding down the hall, past the office, and into the large workshop where he did his special projects. He flipped open his laptop and pulled up the tracker, narrowing his search.

There they were—Sophie’s and Em’s phones were near the river, downtown Spokane. They’d be in the water soon. By the time he could get there, the Jacks would be in the wind, along with their girls.

Goddamnit. Ruger turned and punched the wall, smashing through the sheetrock. Sharp pain hit, helping him focus. He pulled an unregistered .38 semi-automatic out of his bench drawer and shoved it into his ankle holster, then grabbed extra clips. Then he turned and went back down the hall to find Picnic and the others arguing over what they should do. Pic wanted to ride now—Horse, Bam Bam, and Duck all wanted to take the time to make a plan, which Ruger knew needed to happen. Couldn’t do shit in Spokane until they had more info.

Toke had lost the vote but he’d won the battle.

The Reapers and the Devil’s Jacks were going to war.

SOPHIE

I don’t know how long we rode in the back of the van. It felt like forever. Then I heard the sound of a garage door opening. We pulled in and it shut behind us. Hunter and the driver stepped out of the van, coming around to open the back doors.

Hard hands—not Hunter’s—grabbed my ankles, pulling me out roughly. My cheek scraped, and if the kidnapping hadn’t fully sobered me, the pain finished the trick. He half carried, half dragged me into the house. Then he dropped me down on the couch and I struggled to sit up. Hunter set Em down next to me, far more gently. He stepped back and joined his friend. Guy number two was Skid—the other Devil’s Jack I’d met in Seattle. They stood over us, faces grim, and I knew we were well and truly f*cked.

My stomach twisted and I thought about Noah. Would I ever see him again?

“Here’s the situation,” Hunter said, his cold gray eyes flicking back and forth between us. Could he actually be Em’s Internet guy? She hadn’t been lying. He really was hot—even better-looking than I remembered.

Too bad he was a goddamned sociopath.

Or maybe he’d done something to Liam. For all I knew, Em’s online boyfriend was lying dead in the alley. Shit.

“You’re here as leverage. One of the Reapers down in Portland—Toke—made a real bad call tonight. He went to our house and started shooting, no warning, no provocation. He took a hostage when he left. One of our brothers is down and a second is probably getting tortured to death right now, so you’ll have to excuse us for being a little abrupt about this whole thing. Your daddy,” he nodded toward Em, “is gonna do what it takes to get our guy back for us. That happens, you go home.”